Navagear had a good idea...use Google Analytics to create a year-end post of reader stats and most-read entries. Actually Panbo has used Stat Counter since before I came aboard almost five years ago, and the graph I like to ponder is above. If Panbo had a board room, and a staff, we could all sit around smoking large cigars...business is good, with SC reporting almost 852,000 unique visitors last year, averaging nearly 71,000 per month. But I've also had Google Analytics at least partially installed on the site for the last year, and some of its deeper analysis is sort of mind blowing...
The above screenshot is from the online version of my first Yachting column. I wasn't tickled that the print title, The Gizmo Manifesto, got changed (to better attract search engines, supposedly), but the text is all there as written, and I hope you'll check it out. I turned it in before actually taking possession of Gizmo the vessel, but my notions of what's possible for her electronics, and fears of the complications I might run into, are materializing. My June column on Monitoring is also online, and overall I'm getting in a happy groove with Yachting and the other Bonnier marine pubs I work with. But perhaps you can help make these magazines better...
Hey, look at the menu bar up to the right: now there's a Forum link, and it works! Of course there's hardly anything there yet, and I'm still struggling with the issue of categories, but the possibilities are terrific...
I jetted away from the Miami Boat Show (on a half-empty plane!) with loads of coming Panbo electronics material, but first I'll discuss the behind-the-booth question of the show: How bad will 2009 be? Attendance numbers aren't available yet (update: 28% off), but the aisles often seemed emptier than usual, and the Miami Herald reported way low hotel occupancy. Note, though, that the Shelburne sales guy quoted there has bigger problems than the recession, to which I can personally attest...
Is Super Bowl Sunday an appropriate day to announce that I've switched magazine teams? Well, I do have used game (boat show) uniforms headed to charity, a lot of new teammates to meet, and just might get booed in some parts of New York or Boston! I joke, but as of today I am Senior Electronics Editor for the Bonnier Marine Group, now a major Panbo sponsor. I'll be writing for Yachting and Cruising World, and also helping in some fashion with the electronics coverage in Bonnier's several other boating and fishing magazines (see improved Resource section to right). I'm excited, but a wee wistful...
Above is the MS-IP500 head unit of the full Fusion Marine Stereo system I’ve been testing in the lab. The sound is impressive, even with tracks as wildly dynamic as Wetnurse’s Life at Stake. (Check’em out; my boy Curran is the drummer!) Overall, I think the MS-IP500 is so innovative that it almost earned one of Sail magazine’s 2009 Freeman K. Pittman Awards…
Funny, I joke referenced mom in my first Panbo entry nearly four years ago. I’ve become a blogging fool since, but still don’t know how personal is too personal. Many of you have become friends, which is wonderful, while others are passing through in search of marine electronics nuggets, which is fine too. But if you’re in that latter category, you might just want to come back tomorrow, when Panbo will be fully back in action, and on topic.
I didn’t plan to go off line on the occasion of Panbo’s third birthday, but, man, am I! I’m posting this entry using the free WiFi at the Great Machipongo Clam Shack (excellent), and a couple of my fingers aren’t typing at 100% due to a header I took off a bicycle yesterday. Where I’m staying there’s no Internet or cell coverage, and besides I’m tempted just to settle into a deck chair and watch the egrets, plovers, geese, etc. all day. In short, though I brought lots of entry material along, Panbo may be very sporadic this week.
Dear readers, sorry for the dead air! I intended to post at least a few times during MIBS (Miami International Boat Show), but your boy way over booked himself, and sometimes had a little too much fun. For starters, I got pretty consumed with the two-day NMMA Innovation Awards judging process, which turned out to be impressively serious and well organized. There were lots of worthy entries into the Consumer Electronics category, which was won by Furuno’s NavNet 3D with Honorable Mentions for Standard Horizon’s HX850S combo VHF/GPS and Globalstar’s SPOT. The full Awards press release is here. Then there were the rounds of press conferences and booth visits, and this year no less than six on-the-water electronics demos. That “Miami madness” shot above was taken during the FLIR thermal imaging cruise, which was blogged by MadMariner’s Tom Tripp. Embarrassingly, Tom also managed to cover lots of other MIBS highlights, electronic and otherwise, and my mates from PMY produced a really neat set of show videos.
